It's Not a "Culture War"

[Jawja]

Let's call it what it really is: A RELIGIOUS WAR.

When the Repukes and their corporate media whores get on the air and go on and on about the "culture war in America," they are being disingenuous. What is happening to our culture in America is in reality a war being fought between religious fanatics who believe that we must all live according to their religious beliefs and those Americans who believe “live and let live” in personal pursuit of happiness in a secular society within the framework of our Constitution and system of government.

These religious freaks don’t really believe in the Constitution as crafted by our Founding Fathers. Even though there is nothing in this document that says this is a Christian nation under “God,” they just don’t accept the “separation of Church and State” ideology. They can’t accept a multicultural, multi-religious society under secular government where all people have equal rights and privileges under the law. And that, in my opinion, makes them UNAMERICAN.

This is a religious war with a full frontal assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the guarantee of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as established. They are hiding behind the “culture war” meme to obscure the truth about their objectives, which is a theocratic government ruled only by Christians and for Christians.

This is not a war of cultures. This is a war of religion and it’s influence on our rights as encoded into law.

They are UnAmerican and they are waging a religious war against citizens of the United States who don't believe as they do.

Pass it around.

[ewagner]

1. Well said

I heard Peggy Noonan's description on Hardball and was ready to throw something at the TV. Unfortunately, nobody refuted what she said on the "culture war" issue. They did, however, take her down a notch on The Passion

[Jawja]

3. I saw that too.

The opening of "The Passion" and the marriage amendment proposal has finally exposed these people, in my opinion. And what is really troubling is the fact that they both seemed to be intertwined (along with Janet's breast).

We now have mainstream media programming and pundit discussions of Jesus as if he were a celebrity living today. It's great that people have their faith and believe; but now it's over the top. We have discussions of details about Jesus and his alledged life and death and Gibson's viewpoint as if they were fact. We have CNN and the History Channel producing documentaries of Jesus as if he were Napolean or Alexander the Great or Michelangelo or any other historical figure who indeed lived.

I believe in the right of anyone to believe or not believe as they choose. I believe in the right of anyone to believe or not believe any interpretation of the Gospels as they choose.

But now we are being smothered with the Gospel of Jesus.

This is not a culture war anymore. It's a religious war.

I am waiting for the backlash to begin.

[Mick Knox]

5. I agree it does seem to be going over the top...

I am probably one of the bigger defenders of Passion.. if only to correct what are bold faced mischaracterizations.. it does not in any way mean we need a theocracy. What we need is the constitution.. which as far as the country goes.. trumps anything else. That is the law of the land.. and that is what should govern this country. We ARE NOT a theocracy.. that said they have every right to petition for grievance.. they do not have the right to impose religious edicts on this country...

[BigDaddyLove]

2. It sounds to me as if you are just as rabid about your side.......

'winning' as they are.

Doesn't seem like you are allowing any room for tolerence for another's religious viewpoint in this 'war' of yours.

I also disagree that there is a war going on, religious or otherwise...I tend to think that most people are too busy living their lives.

[Jawja]

4. Where have I

shown intolerance? Where have I said that others don't have the right to believe as they choose?

It's not my war, BigDaddyLove; it's their war. I am just seeing it for what it is.

[BigDaddyLove]

8. "Religious Freaks".....

Not gonna make many friends banding that term about.

These religious freaks simply disagree with you when it comes to their idea of what America should be, they consolidate and use their political power to get what they want; it's America, that's what you're supposed to do; you let your voice be heard.

[mike1963]

12. I discovered something back in the 50s when I was a teenager: Not all

religious people are freaks, and not all freaks are religious, but the approximate 90% correlation is...well, quite interesting.

[BigDaddyLove]

14. I guess it all depends on your definition of freaks.......

.

[Lars39]

18. What do you call that group

of supposedly religious people then? People gripe about using the word fundy, so we use wacko fundies, and they object to that. :shrug:

What can we call them so that everyone knows who we are talking about, with having to write a paragraph describing them?

[BigDaddyLove]

20. How about just people?

Or isn't that derisive enough for you?

[Lars39]

22. Let's try it !

In a sentence: "Those people who tell me I'm going to hell because I don't agree with them about...."

Nope. Just takes up too much bandwith.

[BigDaddyLove]

23. Why can't you just let those people who think you're......

going to Hell for whatever reason just think that?

Why do you even care? I don't.

[Lars39]

27. I don't care about hell because I don't believe in it.

The issue has effected my family, though. Ever been shunned by family members because you weren't a christian? The cultist fundamentalists(see, I'm trying out another definition) are not a live and let live type of folks. Their brand of beliefs have fractured many families in the US.

[BigDaddyLove]

29. A lot of issues have affected/fractured a lot of families........

Christianity is but one.


With regard to your definition fetish, how do you respond to those who decide to jettison the word 'Gay' in favor of the word 'Fag'?

[Lars39]

31. I do not have a definition fetish.

I do try to be sensitive to what people prefer to be called. I saw nothing wrong with describing fundies as fundies until someone pointed out that there are fundies that do not have a political agenda. Same with the term born again. I have asked christians such as yourself what to call the politically aggressive christians, but no one has so far suggested anything.

[BigDaddyLove]

32. I'm not Christian, but I appreciate the attempted labeling........

and I agree that the litmus test that one should use when giving people a name is how you would think a certain label would affect those that are the target group.

I just don't see how Religious Freaks would be appealing to anyone.

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. Easy - "the intolerant"

or, if it's relevant, "the intolerant religious" or "intolerant Christians" etc. Their views on your going to hell are irrelevant to you, and also, if he exists, to God (and thus your chances).

[smirkymonkey]

7. Don't you get the difference between a

secular government that allows for the expression of and tolerance for all religious (and non-religious) beliefs and a radical Christian Theocracy that would seek to persecute all "non-believers"???

Sheesh, I don't know why this concept is so hard to grasp for some people. The religious are allowed to practice and to think as they see fit. They are not allowed (yet) to impose their religious beliefs upon the whole of society.

Not wanting to live in a Christian Theocracy is not intolerance, wishing to deprive non-Christians of their inherent rights under the Constitution of the United States IS!

[BigDaddyLove]

9. You honestly believe that this country is close to becoming......

a Christian Theocracy?

Or that it could ever even remotely resemble one?

[Sterling]

10. Every been to Oklahoma?

They make laws based on the bible and whim of local churhes.

[BigDaddyLove]

11. So what?

They marry Gays in California and New York...hardly a Theocratic exercise.

[mike1963]

15. Well, thank God we still have cockfighting....

:eyes:

[smirkymonkey]

33. Yes...and it really frightens me...

if the neo-cons have their way, our government will be a theocracy (perhaps not a de jure theocracy, but a de facto theocracy).

Do you know what their master plan is?? It's pretty freaky for those of us who are not right-wing Christians.

[BigDaddyLove]

34. Neo-cons aren't right wing Christians either........

.

[smirkymonkey]

40. Some are, and the rw

xtians play very nicely into their master plan.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

17. This is hostility to HIJACKING Christianity to justify murder. READ LINKS>

(This is my own synopsis that I'm 'proselytizing' all over du.)

Religion is the biggest arrow in the quiver of the Culture War to hijack control of the biggest weapon on the planet, the US government.

'THE CHOSEN FEW' IS BEING MORPHED INTO 'THE MASTER RACE'
THE SAME WAY 'GET OSAMA' WAS MORPHED INTO 'GET SADDAM'! GET IT?

We are living in the closing minutes of a religious culture war that the American Taliban, called Dominionists, are winning.
The US Constitution (of-by-for the people) is being gutted and replaced with the Bible (Divine Right of Kings.)

This is the basic model of this religion-fueled fascism:
Supreme Dictator Smiting Evil-doers Wrathfully Without Legal Restraints. Sound familar?
Yup. George W. Bush as the American Ayatollah.

The inflammation of the old anti-semitic, anti-homosexual, anti-abortion, and anti-porn 'passions' is cover for a very real and documented campaign to make this country into a Hitlerian theocracy fueled by fundamentalist Christian religious passions called 'Dominionism.'

It’s teachings are the opposite of those of Jesus Christ.
Wealth=virtue/Poverty=sin, Monarchy=success/Democracy=failure. War=justice/Peace=crime.
It is totally Orwellian and some animals are definitely more equal than others. In fact, many 'deserve to die.'

'Might Makes Right' is WINNING over 'The Rule of Law.'
We are experiencing the return of Eugenics (elimination of the 'weak') in our government's policies that looks very much like the old systems of feudalism, slavery and holocaust.
Have you noticed the body-count in the last three years with no end in sight?


Georgie's brain is much worse than you think and he's being used for terrible purposes. Here's a British clinical psychologist's researched analysis of the boy king. He interviewed Georgie's family, friends and such and determined that he was abused as a child and developed an 'authoritarian personality,' the root of fascism. Read it and weep for him and us.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1033904,00.html
(So George, how do you feel about your mom and dad?)-CLICK

And this personality is being exploited to further the creation of a Hitlerian Theocracy called ‘Dominionism’, which has been going on in this country for the last thirty years. Read it and wonder what the hell we're in for next now that Eugenics is domestic policy and Imperialism is foreign policy.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5160.shtml
(God Bless America, The Constitution is Dead)-CLICK

If you'd like to read the full speech of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia back in the dark ages of January 2002 when he said that 'democracy interferes with the Divine Right of Kings and he's doing something about it,' read this and wonder what century we're living in and just what that Constitution was for, anyway.
http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/scalia.htm
(God's Justice and Ours)-CLICK

Eugenics, isn’t that a little dramatic? Social conditions have not improved in the United States since 1980.
Using data from the UN and World Bank, researcher Richard Estes created an Index of Social Progress that
Takes into account health, education, human rights, political participation, population growth, the status of women, cultural diversity, ‘freedom from social chaos’, military spending, and environmental protection.
In a list that included 163 countries, the United States ranked 27th. Estes, who has researched world social development for 30 years, found the pace of social development to be "on hold" since 1980, putting the U.S. on the same level as Poland and Slovenia in the current "report card.” Yet the US ‘defense’ budget is the size of the next 15 largest in the world combined.
(US Ranks 27th in World Social Progress)-CLICK.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/uop-ur2071703.php

How can they get away with it when everyone seems to be pissed off at Georgie and we're supposed to be able to vote the bastard out of our White House? By fixing the electronic voting machines for 'the House.' Read this and decide which country to escape to this fall when Georgie is reinstalled like a 'Manchurian Candidate' to finish the job he was sent to do-eliminate democracy, create a police state, and conquer the world.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
(Diebold, Electonic Voting, and the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy)-CLICK

LATE BREAKING NEWS-FEB. 26 2004
Right now the Dominionists are introducing legislation to replace 'The People' as the authority in our democracy’s Constitution with ‘God’ in a bill called ‘The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004,’ exactly the opposite of what it really is, just like the Patriot Act, the Help America Vote Act, the Leave No Child Behind Act, and the Clear Skies Act. The legalities of the Christian Theocracy are being used to destroy our laws as if by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This is not a test! It is absolutely real and happening right now while the media are busy covering gay marriage and Mel Gibson’s bloody crucifixion porn film, ‘The Passion of the Christ.’

“…on February 11 , 2004 Dominionist leaders in congress made their move; they introduced a bill in both houses called The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004. Among the sponsors of the bill are Rep. Robert Aderholt (Alabama), Rep. Michael Pence (Indiana), Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, Sen. Zell Miller (Georgia), Sen. Sam Brownback (Kansas), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina).

The House version is H.R. 3799 and the Senate version is S. 2082. The bill limits the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts to hear cases involving “expressions of religious faith by elected or appointed officials.”

Although the claim by its sponsors appears to be that the intention is to prevent the courts from hearing cases involving the Ten Commandments or a Nativity Scene in a public setting from being reviewed, the law is drawn broadly and expressly includes the acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law by an official in his capacity of executing his office.”

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0402/S00172.htm
(The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004)-CLICK

[BigDaddyLove]

19. While I'm honored to be pummeled by your laundry list.....

I must admit that to me it's essentially hyperbole.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

28. I know it sounds melodramatic. Read the links though. It is scary. n/t

[BigDaddyLove]

30. I have been........

I'm not disputing the existence of a 'movement' or that there are people who would prefer to see this as a Christian nation, just that in my own opinion I don't think it's as dangerous as many obviously do.

[LeahMira]

21. Why tolerate hate?

Doesn't seem like you are allowing any room for tolerence for another's religious viewpoint in this 'war' of yours.

I will be tolerant when the other person is tolerant. When the other person is not, I will walk away in disgust.


I also disagree that there is a war going on, religious or otherwise...I tend to think that most people are too busy living their lives.

They probably are, and they probably don't examine where their lives are going or how their lives are being lived. A whole lot of people who are busy living their lives are not happy people.

[BigDaddyLove]

26. Good for you.......

Walking away from something you find offensive is always the best thing.

...and a lot of people do in fact live their lives in a conscious manner without worrying about every bump in the night, and they're happy.

[distortionmarshall]

6. what's in a name?

culture wars, religous wars - wutever - it seems pretty clear you're talking about the same thing....

friedman (nyt op-ed guy) put the issue, in the context of the middle east, and iran in particular, as a fight between modernity and traditionalists. this seems like a perfectly good way of talking about the matter.

the shit going on here is essentially the same - we've got our christian mullah and ayahtollah traditionalists trying very hard to enforce/reinforce stagnant traditions. Contra them, we've got our modernists, most recently well-represented by rosie and other gay married folks trying hard to break away from the traditional line....

per kuhn, it seems likely that the modernity side will win - eventually - both here and in, say, iran.

it's a good thing :)

[JohnOneillsMemory]

39. WRONG. WE'RE LOSING. THEY ARE KILLING THE CONSTITUTION.

The Bill of Rights was the only Restraining order against a murderous king that the American people had to keep them out of Gitmo Bay.

NO MORE.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has said out loud in public that he believes in the Divine Right of Kings, not democracy.

WE ARE FUCKED.

It is not the usual domestic spat between old and young or Dem and Repub.

WE ARE LIVING IN THE ONSET OF THE FOURTH REICH.
THIS IS NOT RHETORIC.

THIS IS NOT A TEST. DO NOT LIVE YOUR LIFE AS USUAL. SOS.

[Az]

13. Not quite

It is a culture war rapped around religion. 500 years ago the dominant religions of the world suffered a set back. The human race stood up and demanded that it had the ability to determine its own path. With the signing of the Magna Carta the seperation of church and state was initiated. The Enlightenment had been set in motion. What the burning of a Library in Alexandria had set in motion the Humanist Revolution brought to a close.

Humans now had to decide their path based on their consential discernment of what path best served their society. Instead of following the Dogmatic Authoratative rules of the Church they now could determine their own path. Religion survived by adopting the humanist creed.

Moral Relativism has held sway for a long time now. But the churches were built upon foundations of dogmatic authority. These ideas still flow from their halls. But there are many sects and denominations that have well learned and adopted the sense that society cannot be run by their absolute dogma. Thus it is not a religious war that confronts us. But rather a struggle between Moral Relativism and the freedom it brings and Absolute Dogmatic moral authority as represented by the older religious orders.

[camero]

16. Actually it goes much deeper than even that

It's called a take your money, work you like a slave, and kill you off so they can have more and more of the remaining resources war.

[The River]

24. Call it what you will

both terms are reasonable accurate. What you really have is a watershed event in human evolution. The "battle" we are fighting is a battle that was begun centuries ago by Copernicus and Galileo. Faith vs. Science. Or, if you will, pre-rational thought vs. rational thought.
This has been going on for centuries. It won't be solved with the next election cycle or even in the next generational cycle, but, the process is accelerating as a result of the very "science" that conservatives so fear.
*'s scientific revisionism is the most obvious sign that the right
knows it can't compete (in the long run) with science so they will now try to re-invent science to agree with or be subservient to their "faith".
What is really going to make this century interesting is not only a cultural shift, but also the evolutionary shift in self governance, from "nation states" to "corporate states". But thats another topic...

[newyawker99]

36. Hi The River!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[seabeyond]

25. very offensive

i guess it is now official and mainstream that the republican party is the moral and the christian and anyone opposed are heathens. gosh people,..........

a friend and i were talking about the flip flop of the truth here. again i am in an odd spiritual place and seeing a beyond in all this. i call it the drama of the 3d world and how all this is a flip flop in truth. the people are seeing the religious as the ones that have the passion for jesus, yet in a reality as we have been talking on the boards the last couple days, reality is jesus would be a democrat.

jesus would embrace the gay, the prostitute in love. jesus was about taking the jeers and the taunts and anger and violence in love, knowing the fear in these peoples hearts, knowing their lite, yet knowing in their fear their lite was hidden

was telling a fundamentaalist friend yesterday the right, look at the gays in the party being exposed, the adulters, the gambling the drugs.............when one sits in judgement then it is like the universe sends all the temptations they so judge in. and cause they have such a fear in living they find so hard to resist. where if you just embrace the whole concept of christ conscious, then it is not tough at all to sail life in harmony and peace and grace. the school that kids go to an absurd amount of odd illness like lupus and ms adn other such illness like the harder they pray, they will be healed yet that isnt the way it is with prayer. we cannot direct and command our way, it is a surrender to, a living in love, adn they are being given ample opportunity time and again.

i am finding all this really fascinating. it is not feeling like many on the board is into this stuff, yet all the things, bush and fundamentalists, the gays and the sterns and the parents standing up.

i am just wondering what is next for us here.

we had an opportunity with 9/11 to get closer to unite and become one. i am seeing another opportunity in huge will be presented. and how big of a people we will be, depends how much we embrace

[northernsoul]

37. FMA is a Trojan Horse to destroy right to privacy

this is from Andrew Sullivan, of all the unlikely people to see the light lately:

<snip>
THE FMA AS TROJAN HORSE: Here's an email from a Republican lawyer who sees the religious right amendment as a device to do far more than just deny gay couples constitutional protection. The amendment is just the beginning of the religious right agenda:
Now that opponents and proponents of gay marriage are all riled about the FMA its time to talk about the true impact of including a definition of marriage in the Constitution. The potential impact of inclusion of the FMA will effect every American straight or gay because the FMA is not about gay marriage, it is a dangerous Trojan Horse that could completely redefine the powers of the federal government. As an attorney who is researching this issue, let me explain to the best of my ability, why I haven’t been sleeping well since Tuesday.

Under the Constitution of the United States there is no express right to privacy, rather this right to be free from excessive government interference in our personal lives has arisen from Supreme Court precedent that cites the lack of regulation of intimate relationships and the protections of the bill of rights as the basis for an inference of the right to privacy. The right to privacy, according the Supreme Court is found in the penumbras and emanations of these two factors. A shadow of a right, very delicate and now threatened.

By including a provision regulating the most intimate of relationships into the Constitution, the traditional analysis that the court has used to limit government power will be fundamentally changed and the right to privacy, if it is not destroyed completely, will be severely curtailed. As a result, decisions like Roe v. Wade, (Abortion), Griswold v. Connecticut (Birth Control), Lawrence v. Texas (Private Sexual Acts), will all be fair game for re-analysis under this new jurisprudential regime as the Constitutional foundation for those decisions will have been altered. A brilliant strategy really, with one amendment the religious right could wipe out access to birth control, abortion, and even non-procreative sex (as Senator Santorum so eagerly wants to do).

This debate isn’t only about federalism, it’s about the reversal of two hundred years of liberal democracy that respects individuals. So why isn’t anyone talking about this aspect of it?
With luck, this agenda will be revealed as this amendment is discussed and debated. The most important thing to remember is who is behind this amendment: Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer, Robert Bork, Rick Santorum. For them, gays are just the beginning, the soft targets before the real battle. Memo to straights: you're next.
- 6:58:11 PM
</snip>

[JohnOneillsMemory]

38. KICK ashcroft out of your bed KICK hands of Scalia off the Constitution!

SEE POST #37 STRAIGHTS, YOU'RE NEXT.